The Progressive Era
INTRODUCTION
As the 20th century dawned and big business boomed, many had come to call the previous 20 years the
"Gilded Age."
Wealthy families like the Carnegies, Vanderbilts and Rockefellers enjoyed the fruits of big business -and the fruits of other's labor.
But for most American families it was far from a "Gilded Age" as they incurred the harsh realities of
sweatshops, slums, child labor, corruption in government and business, disease and racial prejudice.
MIDDLE AGE WOMAN:
“In these disease breeding holes we, the youngsters together with the men and women toiled
from seventy and eighty hours a week...A sign would go up on Saturday afternoon: ‘If you don't
come in on Sunday, you need not come in on Monday’ ...Children's dreams of a day off
shattered. We wept, for after all, we were only children.”
As Americans ushered in a new century they began to demand change, equality, reform...
...and the Progressive Era was born.

Chapter 1 - Early Voices of Reform
The roots of the Progressive Era reforms began many years earlier.
For over eighty years Presidents and federal politicians had "rewarded" their supporters with lucrative
government jobs. It was called "Patronage” or the "Spoils System" from an old war slogan.
Following the Civil war and reconstruction the American public grew increasingly disgusted with
government corruption and favoritism.
Some members of the Republican party began a reform movement. Nicknamed "Mugwumps" they were
influential Republicans who refused to support their party's presidential candidate, who they believed
opposed reform.

With the assassination of President James Garfield in 1881 by Charles Guiteau, whom he had refused to
hire for a government position, the outcry for an end to patronage reached a crescendo.
Now President, Chester A. Arthur convinced Congress to pass the Pendelton Act establishing a federal
civil service. Federal workers would now be hired based on competitive exams rather than political
influence.
Slowly civil service regulations were expanded to almost all government jobs. The Mugwump concept of
an honest government based on merit laid the groundwork for progressive reform...
...as did two other political groups: The Populists and Socialists.
After the Civil War many Americans returned to, or began, farming, but over the next decades there was
an overproduction of farm goods.
With more supply than demand, prices plummeted lower and lower.
At the same time the cost of seed, fertilizer, and railroad transportation increased, leaving more and more
farmers little money to support their families and still pay their debts to bankers.
In protest, farmers began to organize political parties. Of them, the Populist Party emerged as the most
powerful.
The Populists supported an income tax - based on earnings - to support the government rather than the
tariffs then charged to farmers and businesses. They demanded a shorter workday, government loans to
farmers, the direct election of state senators, secret ballot voting and other election reforms.
But as Republican William McKinley defeated the Populist supported Presidential candidate, Democrat
Williams Jennings Bryan in 1896, the Populist party, if not it's causes, faded.
By 1900, another political movement emerged demanding even more radical change - an end to
capitalism itself.
Eugene V. Debs was one of the founders of this new political force -- the Socialists.
EUGENE DEBS:
"As long as a relatively few people own the railroads, the telegraph, the telephone, own the oil
fields and the gas fields and the steel mills and the sugar refineries and the leather tanneries own, in short, the sources and means of life - they will corrupt our politics, they will enslave the
working class, they will impoverish and debase society..."

Socialists felt that the industrial age and its capitalist culture was responsible for the wide disparity
between the handful of rich and the working poor of America.
Debs' proposed solution was to eliminate private ownership.
Many middle and upper class Americans disagreed with the socialists. They too, felt that big business
was out of control and American workers were being taken advantage of. These "Progressives" felt they
could improve capitalism by making government more responsive to social inequities. Progressives
wanted instead to reform government and business -- insuring decent working conditions and wages,
and fair governmental rule.
Although the Progressive Era spawned only about 17 years following the turn of the century, the issues it
addressed still resonate today.

Chapter 2 - Progressives’ Programs
The progressive movement gained momentum and followers as Americans read the work of writers and
journalists who exposed corruption in government and business and described the deplorable life of
many working class Americans.
These writers became popularly known as "Muckrakers" from a character in John Bunyan's "Pilgrims
Progress" who raked up the mud and muck of the world.
Author Upton Sinclair shocked the nation with his graphic description of the filth and appalling working
conditions in Chicago meat packing plants. Ida Tarbell described the cutthroat tactics used to eliminate
competition by big businesses like Standard Oil.
Jacob Riis, an immigrant himself, wrote a first-hand account of life in the slums, while Lincoln Steffens,
considered the leader of the muckraking movement, exposed the corruption so rampant in city
government.
As Americans read these muckraking books and magazine articles they became not only aware of the
country's problems, they demanded and supported reforms in both business and government.
ROBERT LAFOLLETTE:
“My goal is not to smash corporations, but to drive them out of politics.”
A major reform governor, Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin enlisted experts to help him improve his
state's government. Soon other states followed his lead.

Meanwhile, on the local level, new forms of city government emerged.
After a tidal wave devastated the city of Galveston Texas a five-member commission was set up to
rebuild the city, rather than politicians. This commission system of government proved so successful that
in just 14 years some 400 other cities had followed Galvelston's lead.
Still other cities adopted the council-manager form of government. Residents elect a city council to
make laws and the council appoints a manager, usually a professional public administrator, to run the
city's various departments. Both of these systems helped to eliminate corruption in local government.
Meanwhile state government reforms moved forward. Other progressive governors such as Charles
Evan Hughes of New York and Hiram Johnson of California were joined by ordinary citizens like William
S. U'Ren of Oregon.
With his urging Oregon adopted four election reforms: the secret ballot -- where voters individually get
an official ballot and vote in a private booth...
the initiative -- giving voters the right to put issues on a ballot for a vote...
the recall -- which granted voters the right to remove an elected official...
and perhaps most importantly, the direct primary, in which voters chose candidates for office rather than
political party leaders.
The direct primary led to the adoption of the seventeenth amendment to the Constitution, giving
Americans the ability to directly elect their state senators.
Many of the demands of the earlier Populist movement were finally coming to fruition as state and local
governments became more responsive to citizens and tried to eliminate the influence of big business.
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER:
â&#x20AC;&#x153;The growth of a large business is merely survival of the fittest.â&#x20AC;?
Although progressives wanted to preserve capitalism they feared that the concentration of huge wealth
and power in the hands of a few industrialists like Rockefeller was dangerous. As proof they cited the
millions of men women and children who labored for low pay, and long hours, in hazardous working
conditions.
Progressives advocated governmental regulation of business, and over time laws protecting workers and
working conditions were adopted. Still, it took until the late 1930's before the Supreme Court decided
that a federal minimum wage was constitutional.

A turning point in awareness of the plight of working Americans occurred in 1911. A tragic fire in a New
York City garment factory left 126 young immigrant workers dead, trapped behind locked doors at their
sewing machines. Many of the women jumped to their deaths or were burned beyond recognition.
The owners of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company were indicted for manslaughter and new laws were
passed to protect workers from slave labor conditions.
Other progressives felt that the problems of the country demanded moral, not legislative, solutions.
Believing that the drinking of alcohol led to moral collapse, crime, and poverty, organizations like the
Women's Christian Temperance Union demanded...
... and received, a constitutional amendment prohibiting the sale of alcohol in the United States.
Progressive Jane Addams, took a slightly different view... She co founded a settlement house in the
slums of Chicago -- a grass-roots approach to solving neighborhood problems. Hull house, and other
settlement houses, provided a kind of community center where neighbors, especially immigrants, could
gather to learn English, obtain medical help, and learn to solve their own problems.
Other progressive women concentrated on another moral issue. One that had plagued the nation since
the reconstruction days following the Civil War -- suffrage-- the right for women to vote.
NEWSPAPERMAN:
â&#x20AC;&#x153;1912- All along 5th avenue from Washington square to 57th, were gathered thousands of men
and women of New York...women doctors, women lawyers, women architects, women artists,
actresses and sculptures, women waitresses, domestics and industrial workers...all marched
with an intensity and purpose that astonished the crowds that lined the street.â&#x20AC;?
Founded in 1890, the leaders of the National American Woman Suffrage Association movement used
three different approaches to try to win the vote for women.
First, they attempted to get state governments to grant them suffrage. But only Wyoming, Utah,
Colorado and Idaho agreed.
Suffragettes then decided to take their cause to court, citing the fourteenth amendment.
It said that states that denied their male citizens the right to vote would lose congressional
representation. Women argued that they were citizens too, and therefore the states must allow them to
vote.
Susan B. Anthony and other women made over 150 attempts to vote in ten different states forcing the
Supreme Court to decide their case.

But, despite the fact the Supreme Court in 1875 agreed that women were citizens, they concluded that
citizenship alone did not automatically grant women the right to vote.
Their third approach was to rally support for a constitutional amendment granting suffrage. Time and
again the Senate defeated it.
The suffrage campaign marched on, and with the America's entry into World War One in 1917; the tide
seemed to be turning. Leaders of the women's movement re-doubled their efforts. Susan B. Anthony
and Carrie Chapman Catt continued the NAWSA's cautious approach.
While other women leaders such as Lucy Burns and Alice Paul formed a more radical organization - The
National Women's Party, which openly blamed the Democrats and used protest marches and even
hunger strikes to try to win the vote.
Finally, in 1919, Congress approved the 19th amendment and the following year the states ratified it,
granting women suffrage. The long battle for suffrage had taken 72 years.

Chapter 3 - Progressivism at the National Level
On the national political landscape the times seemed ripe for a progressive United States President and
one emerged-- if only by a twist of fate.
Six months after being elected President for the second time William McKinley was assassinated and his
running mate, 42-year-old vice-president Theodore Roosevelt succeeded him in 1901. He was the
youngest person ever to hold that office.
Roosevelt was born into a wealthy family and although he suffered from asthma he was determined to
live an active life. From marksmanship to horseback riding and tennis, to boxing and hunting...
...to his heroic exploits with the Rough Riders during the Spanish American War...
... "Teddy" Roosevelt proved a popular leader. First as governor of New York and then as President.
When asked why people so adored him he said he thought it was because:
THEODORE ROOSEVELT:
"I put into words what is in their hearts and minds but not their mouths."
Roosevelt outlined many progressive reforms to the American public and gave his plan a name: The
Square Deal.

When Roosevelt assumed office over eighty percent of American business was owned by trusts.
Although congress had already enacted the Sherman Antitrust act it had not stopped the trusts from
using unfair business practices to destroy their competition.
Roosevelt began by suing the Northern Securities railroad trust, and in 1904 the Supreme Court agreed
that the trust had become a monopoly and ordered it dissolved.
Roosevelt's administration filed over forty more suits. They pursued the beef industry, Standard Oil, The
American Tobacco company and many other trusts.
Roosevelt faced other challenges from big business and from labor unions. One hundred and forty
thousand Pennsylvania coal miners went on strike, demanding a 20 percent raise, a nine-hour day and
the right to form a union. George Baer, the multimillionaire mine and railroad owner refused to bargain
with the miners, claiming it was his Christian duty to defeat the strikers.
GEORGE BAER:
“The rights and interests of the laboring men will be protected and cared for - not by labor
agitators, but by the Christian men to whom God, in his infinite wisdom, has given control...”
President Roosevelt had one word to describe Baer:
THEODORE ROOSEVELT:
“Arrogant!”
But five months later, with coal supplies starting to run short and winter coming. Roosevelt called both
sides to the White House to talk. Roosevelt threatened the mine owners and labor leaders with a
government takeover, if they didn't agree to have their dispute settled by a Federal Arbitration
Committee. Given no choice, both sides submitted their grievances to the committee.
A compromise settlement was reached, as Roosevelt exercised another of his new principals of a
progressive government. From that point on, the public accepted and expected the Federal government
to intervene when labor strikes threatened the welfare of the entire nation.
Americans overwhelmingly returned Roosevelt to the presidency in 1904 as he continued his work as a
trustbuster and a staunch proponent of governmental regulation of business.
The many other progressives who were serving in local state and federal government as well, helped
Roosevelt to get the support he needed to get his proposed laws passed.

Like mayor Samuel "Golden Rule" Jones of Toledo, Ohio and governors Charles Aycock of North
Carolina, and John Albert Johnson of Minnesota and Albert Cummins of Iowa, and "Fighting Bob" La
Follette of Wisconsin both of whom became United States Senators.
Two years after his re-election, Roosevelt saw the Hepburn Act become law, which gave the Federal
Interstate Commerce Commission the power to regulate the maximum fees railroads could charge.
Roosevelt next turned his attention to questions surrounding public health. Like most Americans he was
horrified when he read Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" and even considered becoming a vegetarian. He
appointed a commission to investigate Sinclair's claims.
UPTON SINCLAIR:
“...a man could run his hand over these piles of meat and sweep off handfuls of the dried dung
of rats. These rats were nuisances, and the packers would put poisoned bread out for them,
they would die, and then rats, bread, and meat would go in the hoppers together.”

Sinclair’s charges of unsanitary conditions proved to be true. The commission confirmed his description
of "potted ham" as a hash containing ground rope and pigskin. So in 1906 - with Roosevelt's urgingcongress adopted the Meat Inspection Act. Federal inspectors would now guarantee safe, sanitary meat.
That same year more reforms followed, with the passage of the Pure Food and Drug act. Manufacturers
now had to list the contents of foods and drugs on labels and could not make exaggerated claims about
a medicine's benefits. No "...deleterious drug, chemical or preservative" could be used in medicines or
foods.
Roosevelt brought the same enthusiasm to protecting American's natural resources that he did to
leveling the business playing field.
After graduating from Harvard University a young Theodore Roosevelt had worked as a cattle rancher in
the Dakotas.
He quickly realized that ranchers were allowing cattle to overgraze the great plains, that farmers had cut
down forests and plowed under the prairies, and that America's natural resources were being
squandered.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT:
“What will happen when our forests are gone, when the coal, the iron, the oil, and the gas are
exhausted?”

As President, Roosevelt withdrew 148 million acres of forestland from public sale. An area larger than
Germany.
On the advice of his friend, naturalist John Muir, Roosevelt established over fifty wildlife sanctuaries, five
national parks and designated eighteen national monuments.
He also put fellow conservationist, Gifford Pinchot in charge of supervising the national forests.
GIFFORD PINCHOT:
“...the nation was obsessed by a fury of development. The American Colossus was fiercely
intent on appropriating and exploiting the riches of the richest of all continents.”
Roosevelt was so determined that Americans realize that the country's resources were not endless that
he even banned Christmas trees in the White House.
Theodore Roosevelt ignored tradition and re-defined the image and scope of the President of the United
States. He chose to be vibrant, visible and accessible.
Roosevelt was the peoples' choice throughout America and in turn America allowed him to use what he
called his: "bully pulpit" to accomplish his goals of reform and governmental regulation. However, a third
term as President wasn't in keeping with tradition...
...so bowing to precedent, Roosevelt instead hand picked his successor -- William Howard Taft who
easily won the presidency in 1908.
Taft shared Roosevelt's progressive beliefs, if not his overwhelming popularity. His much more
conservative approach to reform disappointed not only the more progressive members of his own party
but the public at large.
The fact that the third party candidate, socialist Eugene Debs, received almost a half a million votes for
President, was a clear indication that a great many Americans wanted more radical change than even
Roosevelt had pioneered - now under Taft's leadership they felt cheated.
Although he was physically large - six feet tall and 350 pounds - Taft was no match for the size of
Roosevelt's personality and popularity with voters. Taft was a distinguished lawyer and judge but timid
and uncomfortable as a politician. When he lost re-election to Woodrow Wilson in 1912 he returned to
his real love, the law, and became the only ex-President to have been chosen as a chief justice of the
Supreme Court. He said the White House was "the loneliest place in the world", and that:
WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT:
“I don't remember that I ever was President.”

Taft's one term as President was not without success, but the bitter political wrangling within his own
party distracted the public's attention.
Taft actually broke up more than twice the number of trusts as Roosevelt during his Presidency. He
convinced congress to pass the Mann-Elkins act, giving the Interstate Commerce Commission the ability
to regulate Telephone and Telegraph companies...
...and he urged congress to pass the sixteenth amendment to the constitution - a federal income tax. It
was ratified by the states a year after he left office.
Still, Taft was more sympathetic to the demands of the conservatives in the Republican party than the
progressives, and the public believed he was failing to continue Roosevelt's reforms...
...they were outraged when Taft signed the Payne-Aldrich tariff raising prices on imported goods, and
incensed when Taft fired Gilfford Pinchot.
When Theodore Roosevelt returned to America from overseas in 1910 he was given a hero's welcome.
The public urged him to seek a third term as President and two years later he did.
However, the Republican party refused to seat Roosevelt's delegates to their convention and as a result
Taft was re-nominated as a presidential candidate on the first ballot.
Furious, Roosevelt and his supporters formed their own political party, aptly named the Progressive
Party. After Roosevelt boasted:
THEODORE ROOSEVELT:
“I'm as strong as a bull moose...and ready for the fight.”
And the progressive party then became known as the "Bull Moose Party".
Former friends and party members -- now political enemies -- Taft and Roosevelt battled each other for
votes. Taft called Roosevelt "A dangerous egotist" while Roosevelt said Taft was:
THEODORE ROOSEVELT:
“A fathead with the brain of a guinea pig.”
Meanwhile the Democratic reform governor, now Presidential candidate, Woodrow Wilson championed
his own progressive program called: "The New Freedom" to American voters, and wisely steered clear of
the bickering between Roosevelt and Taft.

WOODROW WILSON:
“Don't interfere when your enemy is destroying itself.”
With the republican party votes split between Taft and Roosevelt, Wilson won a majority of the electoral
college votes and became President.
Wilson set to work with much success. He convinced the Senate to pass the Underwood-Simmons tariff
which for the first time since the Civil War, reduced tariff rates.
Next, he pursued financial reform by establishing a private banking system under federal control to make
credit more available throughout the country and quickly adjust the amount of money in circulation. The
federal reserve system was one of Wilson's greatest achievements and is the cornerstone of our
economy even today.
The next year Wilson helped establish the Federal Trade Commission and signed into law the Clayton
Antitrust Act. Both the commission and the act were aimed at stopping unfair business practices.

Chapter 4 - Limits of Progressivism
Despite his admirable record of accomplishments, and his support of suffrage for women, Wilson like
Roosevelt and Taft did little to improve other American's civil rights.
Perhaps it was his southern upbringing that influenced his decision to appoint segregationists as the
heads of federal agencies. Segregation expanded in the military, and the practice returned to the Capitol
and Federal offices in Washington DC-- that had been desegregated during reconstruction.
WOODROW WILSON:
“I have made no promises in particular to Negroes, except to do them justice.”
Ida Wells-Barnett had joined W.E.B. Du Bois, Mary Church Terrell, Jane Addams and others in founding
the NAACP -- The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. 1n 1910 the NAACP
had supported Wilson's bid for the Presidency...
Now the African Americans and their white supporters felt Wilson had betrayed their trust.
As Editor of the Memphis Free Speech (newspaper) Ida Wells-Barnett had led a campaign to protest the
lynching of African Americans in the United States. Despite the fact that between 1892 and 1903 some
three thousand African Americans were killed...
... Wilson failed to support federal anti-lynching legislation, or reverse the practice of segregation in his
government. William Monroe Trotter, editor of the Boston based newspaper The Guardian asked him:

WILIAM MONROE TROTTER:
“Have you a 'new freedom' for white Americans and a new slavery for your Afro-American fellow
citizens? God Forbid.”
There were limits to the success and scope of progressivism as evidenced by Wilson's inaction on civil
rights. Still, the progressive era did reflect the basic optimism of the American public, a belief that any
problem could be solved.
WOODROW WILSON:
“The highest and best form of efficiency is the spontaneous cooperation of a free people.”
Despite Wilson's rhetoric, class struggles were emerging, unemployment was growing in America and ...
...by 1914, the First World War had broken out in Europe...
Woodrow Wilson was reelected in 1916 but despite his campaign slogan, "He Kept Us Out Of War,"
America inevitably became involved.
The attention of the nation now turned from the reforms and in-equalities of the Progressive Era –
-- to the reality and horror of war.